07_15_2020

The Pandemic And What We Can Learn From It

The title of this Blog reflects one of the assignments I have this week from a group that I belong to.  We decided at our last weekly meeting to spend time reflecting on the lessons we are learning from four months into our “new normal.”

Some of my lessons are more concrete and easier to identify; others feel a bit more ephemeral. One of my concrete lessons has to do with food: shopping for groceries, planning out meals for the week, and managing leftovers.

Since I am mindfully limiting how often I put myself in contact with others, I have had to put more thought into preparing how I go about meal planning.  I live near two nice grocery stores, so in the past I was content to make several trips to the grocery store in a week.  Now I am down to one trip a week.  And given that I want to limit how long I am in the store, I need to be highly organized.

I am experiencing the benefits of taking the time to plan a sequence of meals to prepare within a week. This process requires thinking about how tastes blend together while allowing for variety of tastes as I know that I quickly grow tired of the same dish if served more than 2-3 days in a row. To set about this task of meal planning, I zero in on what sounds good to me.  I cook a lot, so I always have favorites to fall back on, but my curiosity genes require that I frequently try out new recipes.

I scour my favorite cookbooks and saved recipes until I find what I think of as a good plan.  I then go though each recipe, check to make sure I have what I think I have on hand and add what is needed to the list of things to shop for.  Once I have done that, I then have to rearrange the list so that it matches how the aisles at the store are laid out.

Our local grocery stores have converted the aisles to one-way traffic so that you are not passing others in close proximity.  It is possible to backtrack if you forget or miss something in an aisle you have been through, but it is not easy to do.

What have I learned from this re-imagined process?  I have learned that I do a better job of not overbuying so that most of what I purchase gets eaten each week.  I spend less money each week because I am less at risk for impulse buying.  When it comes to cooking, I feel like I am becoming a “MacGyver” chef.  Those of you who maybe remember the original MacGyver TV series will remember that he was able to look around him and create what he needed to solve any situation he found himself in.

I feel like I am applying his talents in the kitchen more so than I did before.  I am a good cook but like the structure of a recipe to get me started in a direction.  The experience of limiting how often I grocery shop is teaching me how to open the refrigerator door, look at what I have available to work with, and then creating a meal.  Recently I found a Napa cabbage waiting to be chosen, several leeks on hand, and some tofu that had another couple of days of life.  I began my heating some caraway seeds to release their flavor, and then added a little butter to sauté the leeks.  Once they were soft I added the chopped cabbage, and when that was cooked, I chopped and added in tofu cubes.  It was quite delicious, healthy, and inexpensive.

In the first few weeks when most  everything closed down, there seemed to be a panic that informed food shopping.  As a vegetarian, I felt like I was less likely to experience shortages, but sure enough, I did have a number of experiences where I could not find some key ingredients I needed to make a recipe work.  I realized at the time how much I have just taken for granted that I will be able to find what I need whenever I go grocery shopping.  At the very least if one store happens to no longer have any fresh parsley, I can easily find it another store.  Things have gotten better, and there is even toilet paper available to purchase most weeks!  As I am planning my meals, I do think about how I could adjust while at the store if I cannot find what I need.

Something is happening about how I am exploring using my time differently, although I  am not sure that I can fully describe what is changing for me at this point in time.  Even as things are gradually opening, I am sticking to my routine of limiting how much I am in confined spaces with others.  I am not going to the gym, my yoga classes, my book groups, etc. unless there is some way to participate via Zoom.

I feel like I have a lot more freedom in how I choose to use my time.  One of the changes that occurred in my life almost immediately when things closed down is that I began increasing the amount of time I spent walking.  Fortunately, in mid- March and forward, it has been possible to be outside most days.  I have found that I like an extended walk first thing in the morning after a few sips of coffee.   Walking early also means a cooler more pleasant walk before the heat of the day.

In the past I have devoted using the morning time to doing the tasks that I felt were most important to me.  I suppose that is what I am doing  now but devoting the morning to physical tasks that include walking and gardening has shifted my other work – a lot of which includes reading, researching, and writing to the afternoon.  Shaking up how I structure my use of time has also invited me to use this gift of time in ways that I feel are good for me.  I used to save my reading for pleasure until the evening, a time where I felt my work for the day was completed.  I am becoming more comfortable choosing time to read for pleasure during the day when I feel that is what is calling me.

I think the lesson I am learning here is to listen and to respond in a more balanced way to the parts of me that want to be nurtured.  I am discovering that I am still productive and accomplishing much of what I want to even though I am approaching how I use my time differently.  I am enjoying learning this lesson.

I also feel like I am learning some things about living more simply.  I am spending less money as I am not eating out.  I enjoy breakfast mid-morning at our local diner in town, and lunch or dinner with friends during the week has definitely been one of my treats.  And I am not doing any clothes or household shopping.  I am finding that I can make do with clothes that I have on hand.   It just takes some planning and experimentation.

Speaking as an introvert, there are some parts of this “new normal” that are appealing to my desire for less noise in my life and more periods of solitude.  I will be curious to see if other introverts begin to share some of the same feelings.  I wonder if we will experience a sense of less rushing and more deliberateness about how we limit our responses to demands on our time.

There is no doubt that the pandemic has brought a tremendous about of loss, sadness, and frightening changes to many in the world.  I can only imagine the stress that people who have lost their jobs and health insurance are experiencing, as well as the sadness and loss of those who have lost loved ones.  I am incredibly grateful that to-date I have been spared these losses.

Recently I listened to a webinar that used a description of our experience that was attributed to an indigenous source.  “We are going through a portal that is leading us to a rebirth.  There is loss and devastation as we go through this transition, but we have the opportunity as well as the responsibility to create a better world.”

I encourage us to nurture and sustain our resilience so that we can be part of the creation of a better world, one that includes greater sharing of the wealth and resources that contribute to a well-balanced and less stressful life.